Princess and The Frog
by shipatfirstsight
Summary: Kennett one-shot based off of Disney's Princess and the Frog, with Klaroline on the side. AU/AH. There are no talking animals, aside from Kol and Bonnie, in this one.


**Kennett one-shot based off of Disney's Princess and the Frog, with Klaroline on the side. AU/AH. There are no talking animals, aside from Kol and Bonnie, in this one.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Vampire Diaries or the Princess and the Frog.**

When Bonnie was little, her father had told her that hard work was needed to get your dreams. And she lived by that creed.

She rarely went out with friends. She worked two jobs and barely got any sleep, all to fulfill her father's lifelong goal: to open a restaurant of his own. He had died before it could become a reality, but that didn't mean Bonnie couldn't do everything in her power to make it happen.

Still, the work was hard, and running on a few hours of sleep every night was far from easy. It would be worth it in the end though; it had to be.

Dreams came true every day in New Orleans, why couldn't hers?

She rushed through the busy streets; her shift at Cal's over, she was on her way to Duke's Diner for the breakfast rush. Pay was meager, at best, but sometimes she was given good tips, and every little bit counted after all. Every penny brought her that much closer to getting their restaurant.

"Morning John." She greeted the cook with a small smile before collecting the orders that were ready and taking them to the diners.

"Morning Bonnie. How's that restaurant of your's coming along?" She chose to ignore him and his ever present sarcastic comments. She would show them, she would show them all. They had no idea what she was capable of.

"Bonnie!" Elena, John's niece, waved her down from one of the tables where Katherine, Elena's twin, and Damon and Stefan Salvatore also sat. "We're all going out dancing tonight, you want to come?"

"I can't tonight Elena, I have a shift at Cal's again. Maybe some other time?"

"Sure, sounds good."

Bonnie walked away to get the next customer's order, but Damon's voice carried to her ear. "I told you she wouldn't come."

Patrons came and went, and her shift passed along slowly as she considered Damon's words. Surely it wasn't that bad to be focused on her work? She had a goal in life, since when was fun more important than her future? No, she wouldn't sacrifice her dream, her father's dream, for one night of fun. One night that could make all the difference in the world.

The doorbell rang, and she turned to see who it was. "Mayor Forbes, good morning!" Her mother, the finest seamstress in New Orleans, was a personal favorite of the Forbes household for the mayor's rather flamboyant, spoiled, yet still managing to be sweet, daughter.

"Morning Bonnie! I'll have an order of your beignets, you know they're my weakness."

"Coming right up. Congratulations on the nomination for King of the Mardi Gras Parade."

"Thank you, caught me completely by surprise, for the fifth year in a row!" She set the beignets in front of him with a smile.

"Is Caroline with you?"

"Oh yes, she'll be here in a minute. She has some exciting news that I'm sure she'll love to tell you-"

The presence of said daughter was marked by the slamming open of the door, stopping all talk in the place, as Bonnie was suddenly twirled around in a tight hug. "Did you tell her Daddy? Did you? Oh Bonnie you'll never believe it!" The girl rushed on before either of her two listeners could comment. "Prince Kol of Maldonia is coming to New Orleans, and Daddy arranged for him to stay at our house! Can you believe it? My dream is finally coming true!"

Caroline was the opposite of Bonnie. Don't get her wrong, Bonnie loved her friend with her whole heart, but Caroline had been born with a silver spoon in her mouth, and her father couldn't resist her. She believed that as long as you wished for something it would come true. One time, after Bonnie's mother Abby had read the girls The Frog Prince, Caroline had wished on the evening star that she would one day marry a prince. Since then, any prospects that came along were promptly, and stubbornly turned down.

Bonnie didn't even have time to worry about finding a man. But it was all well and good this way; she was getting closer and closer to her dreams, Caroline deserved to get hers as well.

"Well Care, let me give you a little secret. Mama always said the way to a man's heart was through his stomach."

Caroline's face lit up at her words, and the glance she threw between Bonnie and the beignets that were set in front of the mayor should have been a dead giveaway. But Bonnie didn't catch on until Caroline took her father's wallet, grabbing a handful of bills, and thrusting them into her hands. "I'm going to need you to make about five hundred of your man-catching beignets, should this cover it?"

The money in her hands was more than Bonnie could have ever hoped to make from restaurant wages and tips. It would be enough to buy the old sugar mill that her daddy had always talked about so fondly. "Yes, this will cover it fine. This is it! I'm getting my restaurant!"

_

Few things turned out the way that they were planned. In fact, Bonnie would have been more surprised if things had gone smoothly from there.

She went and spoke to the real estate brokers in charge of the sale of the mill and arranged a deal with them. All seemed fine; they were going to come with the paperwork for her to sign at Caroline's ball that night.

At home, she cooked the beignets and got her costume for the night ready (throwing up a quick thanks that her mother was a seamstress and she wouldn't have to waste money on something new), before heading to the Forbes mansion and setting up a table.

It was all going so well, which Bonnie supposed she should have been suspicious of anyway, but she was high on the euphoric feeling of her dream finally being tangible. An actual reality. It was happening. And then, the duo of Connor Jordan and Galen Vaughn crushed her fragile hopes.

Someone else had come forward with an offer higher than hers. In cash, and that if she couldn't up her offer within three days, the mill would be lost to her. And so, just like that, her dream was ripped from her grasp, right as the prince arrived to much fanfare and pomp.

It hurt. Caroline and Bonnie had made their dreams together on that same day, and to know that only one of them would get it? Well, it hurt.

Tyler, the Forbes' dog, crashed into the table right at that moment, spilling wine and honeyed beignets all over Bonnie. As if this day couldn't get any worse. Caroline though noticed her friend's distress, rushing over to her and helping her up, throwing a "I'll be right back Prince Kol."

She was grateful to have Caroline. Most rich girls wouldn't have had a thing to do with Bonnie, let alone lend her a new dress for the evening. Still, it didn't dull the pain in her chest. Everything she had worked toward since she was six years old was gone. "You good in here Bonnie?"

"Yeah Care, go on back down to your prince." At least one of them deserved to be happy. She walked out onto the balcony after Caroline had left, deciding that maybe some wishing was in order right about then. "Please, please, please." She happened to look down at the railing to find- and she stifled a shiver- a frog, her childhood fear. "I suppose you want a kiss?"

"Kissing would be nice darling."

Her fragile bravery fled and she let out a shrill scream. Frogs were not supposed to talk!

"Princess, princess, calm down." Princess? Oh! The crown Care put on my head. Maybe it's just an endearment? "I am Prince Kol of Maldonia, and I find myself in need of some assistance."

"Assistance? Now hold on- wait just a minute! If you're Prince Kol, than who is out there waltzing with Caroline on the dancefloor?"

"All I know is one minute I'm handsome, tall, charming, and the next, I'm tripping over these." He pointed down to his webbed feet, and she supposed that if what he said was true, it would be rather odd to go from legs to... well those.

"And how exactly do you expect me to be able to help?"

"It is a story my mother used to read me as a bedtime story. The Frog Prince, you have heard of it?" At her nod her continued, "Well, I figure since magic is what got me into this mess, how crazy would it be for a kiss from a princess to work?"

He still thought she was a princess. This was bad this was very, very bad.

"And if you help me, well, I am fabulously wealthy, I could give you a reward of some kind."

A reward? Her restaurant! Maybe wishing on a star wasn't so crazy after all. "Just one kiss?"

"Of course. Unless you beg for more."

Turns out, when the book said that the kiss was from a princess, that was a very important plot detail.

Their lips had touched and Bonnie had barely had a chance to register the horrible feeling of his frog lips on hers, before a flash happened, and, after her eyes cleared from the light that had temporarily blinded them, she found that she was looking up at him. "How did you get up there, and why am I way down-" She had lifted her hand, and a spotting green, she broke off with another shriek, jumping onto the balcony railing next to him. "Oh my god! Oh my god. I'm green, and I'm slimy!"

"That's not slime," he grabbed her arm, running his fingers along it, "you are secreting mucus."

She pounced on him for whatever stupid decision had landed the two of them in this mess. Because now she was involved, and she wanted to be human again, thank you very much. The force of her pushed them both down onto the party below as she tried to gain control of her unfamiliar limbs. Their presence though scared the guests, and they were soon being chased around, forced to make their exit on balloons of all things. "I'm sorry princess, I'll find us a way out of this mess."

Not an endearment then. "I'm not a princess, I'm a waitress."

"What! You let me believe that you were, why are you wearing a crown then?"

"I thought maybe it was an endearment that prince's used, and it was a costume party."

"I cannot believe I kissed a waitress!"

"Well I can't believe I kissed a snobby little prince!"

_

The first night was hard. They made it to the bayou before their transportation was ruined, but that brought on worse things than the humans at the party. Gators were no picnic, and the both of them almost died there, as frogs.

Bonnie made it into a tree, safe from the hunger of the animals, and she almost didn't save the prince. This was all his fault anyway, but Bonnie wasn't able to see it through. Even when, once she had pulled him into safety, he had tried to feel her up making some comment about them "Getting comfortable."

She was not going to have sex as a frog with him! A swift kick, Bonnie was so glad that her brain seemed to have grown accustomed to it's new parts, stopped his very unwanted advances.

They were forced to work together after that though to survive. Traveling through the bayou was dangerous as a human, let alone as a small animal- amphibian- and there were possible dangers around every corner; gators, humans, the shadows that followed them. Those they were saved from by Grams, the praised, and feared, witch of the bayou. "Which one of you naughty children were messing with the shadow man?"

"The shadow man? Kol! What is wrong with you?" Over the day they spent together, they had slipped in the use of each other's first name instead of 'your highness' or 'waitress', and Bonnie had discovered that he wasn't a complete snob, even going so low as to help her gather some food. But the shadow man? Everyone knew to steer clear of him and his bad magic. He was into expression, the magic that drew on dark forces, whereas Grams' source of power came from the light. And it was obvious from the way that she had handled, with a few zaps of her fingers, the shadow soldiers, that Bonnie then gathered were from Silas the Shadow Man, that light was a far more powerful magic to control.

"What? I'm a foreigner Bonnie! How was I supposed to know any better?"

"Everyone knows not to mess with the shadow man. It's common sense. And you child," Bonnie shrunk back when Grams' anger was directed at her, "Working yourself to the bone, never taking time for happiness. You should both be ashamed of yourselves."

After Grams had decided the pair was properly scolded, she informed them that the only way to break the spell was for Kol to kiss an actual princess. Which, for the duration of the Mardi Gras Parade, Caroline was.

And that ended the next day by midnight.

_

They rushed back to New Orleans, finding, to their luck, a steamboat that they could board. They laughed and talked once they were properly situated, finding that they could actually enjoy each other's company now that they knew that there was hope for them to become human once more.

He made inappropriate comments, but Bonnie was starting to actually enjoy them. It was just a part of who he was, as much as working hard was a part of her, and she was starting to find his comments sort of... endearing. Bonnie Bennett was actually starting to warm up to the prince, and not just because it was a matter of them needing to survive, but because she genuinely liked being in his company.

**He told her about why he was in New Orleans; a stream of scandals had angered his parents so much that they had cut him off in hopes that he would learn his lesson and stop bringing 'dishonor to the family'. And she told him about her dream, her restaurant. ****_The Mystic_****, it would be called, and people from everywhere would come to eat their, her and her father's, food.**

When he held out his frog hand to dance with her to the music the band was playing, she almost declined as she usually did, but something stopped her. Grams' words. It was okay for her to have fun. She took his hand and he spun her around the top deck, and Bonnie couldn't imagine anything better than that.

He leaned in, and she realized his intentions, almost meeting him halfway, but Caroline's face flashed through her mind, and how much she had always wanted a prince, and Bonnie couldn't do it. Kol's face fell, but he nodded, turning away from her as they docked. "I'll go find Caroline, kiss her, get this bloody spell off of us, and get you your money."

"Kol, Kol wait!" It was too late, though. He was already gone, and she was left to follow after him. She couldn't like him, not like that. She couldn't do that to Caroline. She didn't want him to think she was only in this for the money though, because she wasn't, not anymore. She liked him to be honest, and she wished that Caroline didn't want him as badly as she did so that Bonnie could give Kol a chance.

By the time she caught up with him, it was too late. He was there on top of the mayor's float marrying Caroline. Bonnie had heard war stories of people admitting love finally after years when their boys went to war. She had scoffed at them. If they loved them so much, why hadn't they told them before then? But in that moment, watching Kol marry someone else, she realized that there was a lot of merit to those stories.

She was falling in love with Kol. And he was marrying her best friend.

She ran, well hopped away, or at least she started to. If the spell had been broken, wouldn't she be human again too? She looked around wildly, searching for any possible explanation, and then she remembered. The night of the ball; the man that had been dancing with Caroline then. He had looked exactly like Kol. And there was a box under this Kol's feet that seemed rather out of place.

Bonnie hopped back as quickly as she could, leaping onto the float, causing Caroline to scream, but she ignored her friend, pulling open the box to reveal Kol. "You came for me."

"Of course."

The "prince" dove for the pair then, and they fled into the church, only to be followed by the impostor and the Shadow man. "Get back out there Alaric, and marry that princess! I'll take care of- no, don't touch that!"

Kol, while Bonnie's focus had been on the two men, had managed to leap up, pulling the strange necklace hanging around Alaric's throat, lifting it up to smash it as the other man turned back to what Caroline assumed was his real form. Silas backhanded the prince before he could, and Bonnie came to the conclusion that there was something important about the trinket, catching it as it flew through the air. The shadow man approached her, seeming less eager to hit her, even if she was a frog.

"Now look little missy, you hand that over, I'll make your wildest dreams come true." The church melted away, revealing the restaurant of her dreams, and she was human again she realized in wonder. Everything she had always wanted; the colors, the lighting, the tables, the menus, but as she looked around the room, something was missing. "I've got to hand it to you Bonnie, when you dream, you dream big."

She turned, facing Silas, who was definitely not who she had been missing.

"Your daddy worked so hard for this place, and he died before he could get it. It would be a shame if you gave it all up. Hand that over, and all this can be a reality."

**She realized then what was missing from the pretty fantasy he had painted for her. Kol. He had become ingrained in her life, and she didn't want her dream without him in it. **"My daddy may not have gotten the place he always wanted, but he had what he needed. He had love." He threw the charm below her heel clad foot, smashing it into the ground as his illusion faded, turning the church back into a church and her back into a frog. She stared in horror as the shadow creatures rushed into, dragging him out. Her attention was soon caught by the shallow breathing of her prince.

"Kol!" She rushed to him.

"I'll be alright Bonnie, just give me a moment."

He was fine it turned out, but the clock on their chance at being human again was swiftly running out. Caroline chose that moment to force the church door open, focusing in on the cowering man who was not her prince, but was dressed in the cloths her husband to be had been wearing, and the two frogs.

After much screaming, explaining, and the arresting of Alaric, Kol and Bonnie finally managed to get Caroline to believe and accept their story. "You two fell in love, didn't you?" Was all she said at the end with a smirk as they glanced frantically at each other. When neither denied, she picked Kol up. "I'll kiss him for you Bonnie. No strings attached."

The clock chimed twelve, and all three of their hearts sank at once. It was over then. Their last chance at being human gone by the stroke of a clock. "I'm sorry." Caroline muttered as she set Kol back down beside Bonnie.

"You know, it's alright. We'll be together, and that's all that matters."

They caught another steamboat back to the bayou and Grams. Yeah it was quick, but sometimes when you knew something was right, you knew. And Bonnie and Kol knew that they knew that they knew that they wanted to be together through thick and thin. So why shouldn't they get married? Life was too short to not take some chances.

Grams was more than happy to officiate the ceremony, revealing that she had told Kol to look at what was right in front of him before the two had left. The almost kiss on the boat suddenly made more sense to Bonnie.

"By the power vested in me, I pronounce you frog and wife. Go on and kiss your bride."

He did, leaning over and placing his lips on hers, moving in tandem together. It was soft and sweet. Suddenly, the feeling of his lips changed though, and the hands gripping her waist as well. They pulled back from each other, looking in astonishment. They were human again.

"Like I told ya'll, kissing a princess breaks the spell."

The realization dawned on Kol first. "Once you became my wife that made you-"

"A princess. You just kissed yourself a princess."

He grabbed her again, pulling her flush against him. "And I'm about to do it again."

They found their way back to New Orleans once more, finding Bonnie's mother and explaining their crazy story. Kol then revealed that he had a little bit of money, and with that, they were able to outbid the people who had almost gotten then mill.

The couple set to work, learning more about each other in the process. They weren't conventional by any means, but it suited the both of them to go against the norm.

Soon, sooner than Bonnie would have thought possible, The Mystic was ready for business.

"Breathe darling. Everything will be fine." He said, placing a reassuring kiss on her cheek.

"My restaurant is opening, and your family is coming here, and what if they don't like me? I'm hardly who-"

"They will love you Bonnie, as I do. Trust me."

She grumbled a bit, but decided it would be best to just take his word for it. "Bonnie!"

Caroline's excited voice caused her to turn around, finding her old friend with a tall, blond stranger at her side. "Care!"

"Bonnie, I'm so happy for you! Oh! This is Klaus, he's visiting the states, and he's recieved my father's permission to marry me. We've both been so busy, I haven't had a chance to tell you."

She felt a moment of pride for her friend that she had gone against her dream and was marrying someone who wasn't a prince. She was marrying for love, Bonnie could see that in the couples eyes, instead of station. "Niklaus!"

"Kol!" The two men approached each other, hugging, leaving the two women with mouths agape.

"Bonnie darling, I'd like for you to meet my brother Niklaus."

"You're a p-prince? Oh, I think I need to sit down." Klaus rushed to his finance's side at her words, leading her to one of the tables as Bonnie watched on amusedly.

It looked like Caroline was getting a prince too.

**Fin**

**Phew, and now that that's out of my system, thank you for reading.**


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